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I believe that the sandbox market is growing which is supported by relatively high number of sandbox games coming out in next a few years.

Themeparks, on the other hand, lack innovation. Just look at themeparks released since WoW. I do not count games like PS 2 among MMORPGs. For me, it is simply shooter like Battlefield or CoD just in a massive scale. It is a good game though.

To me it seems logical that for part of the community, themeparks are becoming less popular. I used to like them a lot 5-6 years ago, but now I wouldnt play any of the current "standard themeparks" (swtor, tera, rift, GW2,..) even if they paid me.

On this forum, it may seem that everyone loves sandboxes and hates themeparks, but I think that the sandbox crowd is just a vocal minority. The themepark crowd is happily playing their games as they have plenty of games to choose from.

But yes, I think there is a shift in preferences for part of the MMORPG community. The fact that quite many sandbox games are going to be released clearly supports it since they would unlikely be spending millions of dollars on a game for which there would not be sufficient demand / market.

I don't think so. We still don't know how these games will translate, example Archage from Korean to English as well as the publishers for the games. Right now, all these game are on 'ultra-hype' mode on this site. We shall see if they garner attention of all the gaming public or if they die a death of being ignored. If you base your expectations on members of this site, then Sandbox games will do well. If you assume a vocal minority, like this site is, then they won't do well.

We shall see, but after all the hype of the past couple of years on MMO's coming out, I am from Missouri, I will believe it when I see it and not before. Hoping for the best, prepared for the worst.

Dont get me wrong. In no way I would say that the sandboxes will be successful. ArcheAge may be the biggest fail in gaming history.

I am saying that the fact that number of sandboxes that is being worked on is increasing is not a coincidence. The companies make their analysis, research first and if the result is that there is market for the new product, only then they start to work on it.

Whilst player feedback may be a factor I don't beleive it's the overriding factor in why there aere a number of "Sandbox" MMORPGs int he works. I just think that the developers in question have realised the extreme "Themepark" end of the amrket is totally saturated and so are looking to differentiate themselves from that overly populated part of the market by shifting closer to the extreme "sandbox" end.

I beleive that is the real factor here not a perceived shift in what gamers want.

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If Rift was not the only reasonably sucessful themepark to release in the last few years I would agree that player preference hasn't changed. I think it has though, at least to some extent, and players want more. Things get stale if you do them enough and the mold just hasn't been that different. There is only one WoW and it's fans would rather play it than something similar without the same features/polish.

I think the term "sandbox" is throwing things off because of how polarizing it is here. Call it "bubblegum" if you want but the point is that bubblegum mechanics mixed with candy cane features could equal something sweet everyone can enjoy. Yeah... um, sorry I couldn't help it.

Adding features that deepen and create a vested interest on continuing to play are a great thing IMO.

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i wouldnt consider those games all sandbox. but its good, finally, that we also get some more sandboxy games in the near future.

for me, a sandbox is an open seamless world with absolutley no instances. you can build wherever you want, but you have to count in people or mobs who want to destroy what you build.

you can be a merchant, a thief, a fighter, politician, murder, hero, constructor, crafter, tamer, gatherer, socialicer......

players can give quests, and there are only random npc quests to do

day and nigh cycle, and an alive world with npcs who do their things, own their house or appartment, sleep there....

and there must be evil npcs too, mobs and monsters, and evil players. of course some kind of world bosses or raid mobs, but those only gm played.

my idea would be playable mobs too. you gain exp while playing a rat and when you level up, you can be a wolf and some day perhaps a world boss?!

I love your creativity! Especially playable npc idea where you can grow in strength/ability and eventually become a world boss if you lived long enough.

This happens in Age Of Wushu with its offline system. When you log out in the game your character becomes an npc in the virtual world. He/she has a choice of 30 activitys that he can do in the world while you are offline.

Man your stall as a merchant or do activitys for your faction and be rewarded. All this

comes with its risks because you can also be kidnapped by pks who can sell you into slavery. This is a good way to make cash in the game , the more advanced the player you are kidnapping the more they are worth.

The pk who is doing the kidnapping is also risking a lot because they can be hunted down as well.

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i wouldnt consider those games all sandbox. but its good, finally, that we also get some more sandboxy games in the near future.

for me, a sandbox is an open seamless world with absolutley no instances. you can build wherever you want, but you have to count in people or mobs who want to destroy what you build.

you can be a merchant, a thief, a fighter, politician, murder, hero, constructor, crafter, tamer, gatherer, socialicer......

players can give quests, and there are only random npc quests to do

day and nigh cycle, and an alive world with npcs who do their things, own their house or appartment, sleep there....

and there must be evil npcs too, mobs and monsters, and evil players. of course some kind of world bosses or raid mobs, but those only gm played.

my idea would be playable mobs too. you gain exp while playing a rat and when you level up, you can be a wolf and some day perhaps a world boss?!

I love your creativity! Especially playable npc idea where you can grow in strength/ability and eventually become a world boss if you lived long enough.

This happens in Age Of Wushu with its offline system. When you log out in the game your character becomes an npc in the virtual world. He/she has a choice of 30 activitys that he can do in the world while you are offline.

Man your stall as a merchant or do activitys for your faction and be rewarded. All this

comes with its risks because you can also be kidnapped by pks who can sell you into slavery. This is a good way to make cash in the game , the more advanced the player you are kidnapping the more they are worth.

The pk who is doing the kidnapping is also risking a lot because they can be hunted down as well.

There are safe places to go offline. if you do that in your school there is a good chance you wont get Kidnapped. I learned that the hard way, I logged out in a small town and woke up a prostitute and had to pay my way out. now i never log out anywhere but my School Emei.

Because i can.I'm Hopeful For Every Game, Until the Fan Boys Attack My Games. Then the Knives Come Out.Logic every gamers worst enemy.

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Originally posted by laokoko

If you ask anyone weather they want to play a game with vast open world, the freedom to do anything and be anything, unbound imagination, play a game like you are a character in for example game of throne. Pretty much most people will say ya, I want to play that.

But the reality is when the developer actually make that, people just complain about long travel time, monster, event either undoable since no one do them. Or boss mob being over camped. People who dont' want to be ganked getting ganked. Either FFA full loot pvp where many carebear shy away. Or unrewarding world pvp, since if it is rewarding, people just kill trade and exploit as much as possible. And don't get me started talking about class balance.

Ask anyone in GW2, weather they like open world or dungeon. Most will say open world. Yet the open world is always empty mainly because dungeon offer better rewards. Or even if the open world is more rewarding, people just camp the sphinx event, and everyone is trying to tag as much monster as possible to get the most drop. And there is no challenging in open world event since the only challenge is try to tag monster as fast as you can for better reward. Since if it is rewarding, everyone will be there. And if it is not rewarding no one ever do them.

A lot of this has to do with over-romanticizing the open world concept. When you think abotu it Game Of Thrones is actually an extremely crappy world to live in no matter who you are. Similarly game concepts which sound great when you read about them, often turn out to be not-so-great when put into practice. In addition the repetive nature of MMORPG gameplay means that even the most epic things will become routine and trite if you repeat them enough times.

It does not help that as we play the game, we develope preferences for certain activities. If the activities you like require you to do activities you do not like then its easy for players to get disgruntled.

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Originally posted by Torik

Originally posted by laokoko

If you ask anyone weather they want to play a game with vast open world, the freedom to do anything and be anything, unbound imagination, play a game like you are a character in for example game of throne. Pretty much most people will say ya, I want to play that.

But the reality is when the developer actually make that, people just complain about long travel time, monster, event either undoable since no one do them. Or boss mob being over camped. People who dont' want to be ganked getting ganked. Either FFA full loot pvp where many carebear shy away. Or unrewarding world pvp, since if it is rewarding, people just kill trade and exploit as much as possible. And don't get me started talking about class balance.

Ask anyone in GW2, weather they like open world or dungeon. Most will say open world. Yet the open world is always empty mainly because dungeon offer better rewards. Or even if the open world is more rewarding, people just camp the sphinx event, and everyone is trying to tag as much monster as possible to get the most drop. And there is no challenging in open world event since the only challenge is try to tag monster as fast as you can for better reward. Since if it is rewarding, everyone will be there. And if it is not rewarding no one ever do them.

A lot of this has to do with over-romanticizing the open world concept. When you think abotu it Game Of Thrones is actually an extremely crappy world to live in no matter who you are. Similarly game concepts which sound great when you read about them, often turn out to be not-so-great when put into practice. In addition the repetive nature of MMORPG gameplay means that even the most epic things will become routine and trite if you repeat them enough times.

It's not due to "over-romanticizing". It's due to bad developmental decisions. Why should dungeons be more rewarding, for example. And why should travel be boring? And why should there be but one rewarding place to be so that "everyone will be there".

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i wouldnt consider those games all sandbox. but its good, finally, that we also get some more sandboxy games in the near future.

for me, a sandbox is an open seamless world with absolutley no instances. you can build wherever you want, but you have to count in people or mobs who want to destroy what you build.

you can be a merchant, a thief, a fighter, politician, murder, hero, constructor, crafter, tamer, gatherer, socialicer......

players can give quests, and there are only random npc quests to do

day and nigh cycle, and an alive world with npcs who do their things, own their house or appartment, sleep there....

and there must be evil npcs too, mobs and monsters, and evil players. of course some kind of world bosses or raid mobs, but those only gm played.

my idea would be playable mobs too. you gain exp while playing a rat and when you level up, you can be a wolf and some day perhaps a world boss?!

I love your creativity! Especially playable npc idea where you can grow in strength/ability and eventually become a world boss if you lived long enough.

This happens in Age Of Wushu with its offline system. When you log out in the game your character becomes an npc in the virtual world. He/she has a choice of 30 activitys that he can do in the world while you are offline.

Man your stall as a merchant or do activitys for your faction and be rewarded. All this

comes with its risks because you can also be kidnapped by pks who can sell you into slavery. This is a good way to make cash in the game , the more advanced the player you are kidnapping the more they are worth.

The pk who is doing the kidnapping is also risking a lot because they can be hunted down as well.

There are safe places to go offline. if you do that in your school there is a good chance you wont get Kidnapped. I learned that the hard way, I logged out in a small town and woke up a prostitute and had to pay my way out. now i never log out anywhere but my School Emei.

Yeah, make sure you log off in a safe area but what i'm saying to the person i quoted is you can become an NPC in Age Of Wushu.

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Originally posted by Amaranthar

It's not due to "over-romanticizing". It's due to bad developmental decisions. Why should dungeons be more rewarding, for example. And why should travel be boring? And why should there be but one rewarding place to be so that "everyone will be there".

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Originally posted by TheHavok Online - much more so then GW2, Tera, and SWTOR when those games were in beta.

3)The vocal minority who have been disappointed with everygame released in the last 8 year (and will probably continue to be disappointed..) are trying to blame themepark mmos for the current state of the mmorpg genre. In reality, there have been multiple sandbox mmos released as well, but they just get nitpicky and start listing reasons why they aren't playing those sandboxes, saying things like

A)They aren't 'true sandboxes'

B)they have annoying features (ex: FFA pvp).

I think it really comes down to the fact that there's pretty much no way to please the players lost in nostalgia.

By all means, rattle off recent sandbox/hybrid MMORPGs that are well funded, well supported and developed by a notable developer. How many AAA sandbox titles have there been? On the flip side, how many AAA themeparks have there been? A lot.

I'm personally not too caught up on labels, as I prefer MMORPGs with options that go beyond combat, combat and more combat. Sandbox, sandpark, whatever. I just want more variety, depth and sense of place in my MMO.

i wouldnt consider those games all sandbox. but its good, finally, that we also get some more sandboxy games in the near future.

for me, a sandbox is an open seamless world with absolutley no instances. you can build wherever you want, but you have to count in people or mobs who want to destroy what you build.

you can be a merchant, a thief, a fighter, politician, murder, hero, constructor, crafter, tamer, gatherer, socialicer......

players can give quests, and there are only random npc quests to do

day and nigh cycle, and an alive world with npcs who do their things, own their house or appartment, sleep there....

and there must be evil npcs too, mobs and monsters, and evil players. of course some kind of world bosses or raid mobs, but those only gm played.

my idea would be playable mobs too. you gain exp while playing a rat and when you level up, you can be a wolf and some day perhaps a world boss?!

I love your creativity! Especially playable npc idea where you can grow in strength/ability and eventually become a world boss if you lived long enough.

This happens in Age Of Wushu with its offline system. When you log out in the game your character becomes an npc in the virtual world. He/she has a choice of 30 activitys that he can do in the world while you are offline.

Man your stall as a merchant or do activitys for your faction and be rewarded. All this

comes with its risks because you can also be kidnapped by pks who can sell you into slavery. This is a good way to make cash in the game , the more advanced the player you are kidnapping the more they are worth.

The pk who is doing the kidnapping is also risking a lot because they can be hunted down as well.

There are safe places to go offline. if you do that in your school there is a good chance you wont get Kidnapped. I learned that the hard way, I logged out in a small town and woke up a prostitute and had to pay my way out. now i never log out anywhere but my School Emei.

Yeah, make sure you log off in a safe area but what i'm saying to the person i quoted is you can become an NPC in Age Of Wushu.

I'v only been kidnapped once.

i meant being a npc or mob in a different way. becoming it activly and playing it active! as a new player you can log into the lv 1 rat with just the bite or whatever skill, alone with no "pets". while playing it (special rules of course, so no map and you have to stay in a certain area... has to be thought of). doing damage and chasing people will give you exp. of course you will die a lot, but surviving isnt the purpose. its being an annoying player intelligence mob. the next levels could be the poison fart attack and another level could be the rat swarm. later you gain the wolf or whatever. it may be a welcome sidekick to the game, adding fun and something else to do. perhaps players could meet up with rat swarms and go for a player town rush.... :-)

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I like most game types. Just not crappy games. Most MMO's with sandbox gameplay turn out to be real crappy where the devs expect you to pay for promises for future content/features. My impression is that MMORPG.com always had many members that like sandbox games. But I guess just like me, they don't like bad games.

Then there is the FFA PVP part, which some players see as mandatory for a sandbox MMO. Which makes no sense, because it is just one of many features that can be put in any MMO. FFA PVP is just a preference. So if ppl dont like a game because it has FFA PVP, it doesn't automatically mean that they also don't like sandbox MMO's. Recent sandbox MMO's are FFA PVP. So to any fan of FFA PVP, this might have lead to the impression that MMORPG.com didn't have many sandbox players because the FFA PVP part got so much criticism.

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Originally posted by Amaranthar

Originally posted by Torik

Originally posted by laokoko

If you ask anyone weather they want to play a game with vast open world, the freedom to do anything and be anything, unbound imagination, play a game like you are a character in for example game of throne. Pretty much most people will say ya, I want to play that.

But the reality is when the developer actually make that, people just complain about long travel time, monster, event either undoable since no one do them. Or boss mob being over camped. People who dont' want to be ganked getting ganked. Either FFA full loot pvp where many carebear shy away. Or unrewarding world pvp, since if it is rewarding, people just kill trade and exploit as much as possible. And don't get me started talking about class balance.

Ask anyone in GW2, weather they like open world or dungeon. Most will say open world. Yet the open world is always empty mainly because dungeon offer better rewards. Or even if the open world is more rewarding, people just camp the sphinx event, and everyone is trying to tag as much monster as possible to get the most drop. And there is no challenging in open world event since the only challenge is try to tag monster as fast as you can for better reward. Since if it is rewarding, everyone will be there. And if it is not rewarding no one ever do them.

A lot of this has to do with over-romanticizing the open world concept. When you think abotu it Game Of Thrones is actually an extremely crappy world to live in no matter who you are. Similarly game concepts which sound great when you read about them, often turn out to be not-so-great when put into practice. In addition the repetive nature of MMORPG gameplay means that even the most epic things will become routine and trite if you repeat them enough times.

It's not due to "over-romanticizing". It's due to bad developmental decisions. Why should dungeons be more rewarding, for example. And why should travel be boring? And why should there be but one rewarding place to be so that "everyone will be there".

You guys take the bad and think that's the only way to do things.

Originally posted by Enigmatus

Originally posted by Amaranthar

It's not due to "over-romanticizing". It's due to bad developmental decisions. Why should dungeons be more rewarding, for example. And why should travel be boring? And why should there be but one rewarding place to be so that "everyone will be there".

You guys take the bad and think that's the only way to do things.

There is still over-romanticizing, is there not?

There's a little bit of everything. But by cutting out the posts that I was replying to, you left my quote without context. (Yeah, I know, all these new pocket pokers that don't handle these boards well.) So I included them here.

The conversation was about whether players like "open world" or not, and a statement made that it's really just about "over-romanticizing" the idea. But it's not, so I said so. And the proof offered was relating to problems some games had that don't have to be there, problems that can be fixed and are often part of the overall talk about having a massive open world game. So I pointed that out too.

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Originally posted by NorseGodMaybe both? I think there is a shift coming....

I would bet that you are correct sir ;)

I think that's where the games are going, yes. But that's not the answer, as they'll find out.

If a game is a combination, then the dominant game play will still be the same old game play that gamers are tired of. It will offer new Sandbox features, and so these games might be better Themepark games. But they will still be Themepark games.

And that means that all the things players want, social game play aspects, open worlds that feel "realistic" (in a fantasy sense), vibrant economics, meaning, etc., all these things will still be hampered by the Themepark game play.

But I know most of you won't believe me at this point. You're going to have to see it in action. Then you'll realize what I and some others are saying is true.

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Have always been a sandbox junkie. Just hasnt been any major releases of them lately. Now with a huge amount coming, its much better. And finaly have something worthwhile to read about on these forums. Now atleast there will be some major competition and hopefuly we will get better games on both side because of it!

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Companies have done a great job creating a more diverse mmo in recent years (keep reading so i can break down what i mean by that). There have been a lot of advancements in the ways that players can interact online as most current games try to come up with fresh and interesting new gameplay designs to include in their games.

Where companies have failed (for me anyway) in recent years, is they have taken too much of the Rpg out of mmorpg gaming. A lot of gamers (especially traditional mmorpg players) want more depth and immersion in their games and that has been the trade off in recent years to lure non-traditional mmo gamers to the market. Game companies have been trying to give a more "console" type experience in their gaming where it's less time consuming with many small rewards and victories in the game progression rather than say, the traditional mmorpg design where a quest could take weeks and raids could take half a day, or multi day gaming sessions (think xbox live vs everquest). Mmorpg is an acronym that is used as a blanket to cover a lot of games that are not always all that similar. The Mmo works on a lot of levels, but newer games are either rpg-lite or maybe the games of yore would be more accuratly described as Mmorig, role immersive game, or maybe "wig" world immersive game.

What companies dont understand is that the people that were playing Everquest and Meridian 59 and Ultima Online, started out with a DnD book or even a Zelda game and worked up to that. Now that we have a generation of mmo players that have played WoW and Swtor, many of them want to move to something more immersive and challenging as well. There is a bigger market potential than ever for a more difficult immersive gaming IP, and if a company can take the many advances in game design and just add in those old school principles, they'd have a really successful game on their hands.